"Sports betting is going to be a tough sell in North Carolina"

Supreme Court justices recently struck down a 1992 federal law that banned sports betting across most of the country, many states took notice.
According to the American Gaming Association, $150 billion is illegally spent on sports betting every year.

The association says California, with its plethora of pro and college teams, could make as much as $393 million annually in gaming taxes.

Delaware, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are just a few of the states that have started the process to legalize sports betting or develop regulations.
Rhode Island’s governor counted on revenue from sports betting when proposing the 2019 budget.

The state that brought the case to the Supreme Court — New Jersey — expects to have a sports book running in weeks if not days.

Experts say the landscape will look different within five years. As many as 32 states could be open for business by then.

However, as reported by Greensboro the scenario is somewhat different in North Carolina.
Like Alaska, Alabama, Hawaii, Ohio and a host of others, there are laws on the books that would need to be repealed
or amended before sports betting could take place here.

Moreover, the state is known for conservative attitudes toward plenty of issues gambling included. N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger of Eden and other
legislators say they’ll have to look at their options, but don’t expect anything to happen this year.

Currently, gambling in North Carolina is limited to a statewide education lottery and a casino in Cherokee.

Our gambling statutes go back to 1891,” said Jeff Welty, an associate professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government.
“We’ve got a pretty long uninterrupted history of not allowing gambling, but the world’s changing. That history can be set aside if the General Assembly chooses to do so.”

For some states, it will be an easy transition.

“The general consensus is that states that have a gaming infrastructure — pari-mutuel, racehorse betting, casino
those states will be ahead in the race a little bit,” said Donald J. Polden, a Santa Clara University law professor with an expertise in gaming.
“The anticipation is there is going to be so much interest from those sources there will be legislative action pretty quickly.”

"It’s going to be a tough sell in North Carolina," admitted state Rep. John Faircloth, a High Point Republican.
SOURCE- FULLSTORY